Patriot-News publisher: ‘I am almost positive we will have fewer employees’

Pennlive.com
Patriot-News publisher John Kirkpatrick, Editor Cate Barron and Pennlive.com Editor David Farré took questions from readers about the Harrisburg, Pa., paper’s planned shift to print three days a week. It announced the changes Tuesday.

In response to a question about layoffs, Kirkpatrick said, “I am almost positive we will have fewer employees when this is all said and done. We plan, however, to make sure there are just as many photographers, reporters, content providers as well as the same size (if not larger) sales staff as we have now.” Later he said that the paper would probably have had to cut staff “even if we did not make this move.”
Kirkpatrick said he was sad about the changes, “But we have seen many companies — look at Kodak which saw the digital change on the way but didn’t respond — go by the wayside because of nostalgia and pride. I didn’t want that to happen to us or to this region.”

Another reader complained about the paper’s website:

One downside I find to the paper’s website (and this may be because I’m older than dirt) is that they don’t allow for the many accidental discoveries one finds while thumbing through the paper edition. Websites are fine in many ways, but I think it would be great if they could more closely mimic the newspaper experience.